The Chicago Board of Education will vote on Monday to appoint Macquline King as the permanent leader of Chicago Public Schools, catapulting a Black woman with homegrown talent to the district’s top post 10 months after she was appointed to the interim role.
According to documents posted on the CPS Board’s website Thursday, the school board has offered King the job and she has accepted it.
The proposed contract would be effective July 1 through June 30, 2029 — meaning she would lead the district well past the transition to a fully elected school board. If approved, King’s salary will start at $380,000, more than Martinez was offered. He was granted a $340,000 annual salary on a five-year contract.
This brings to the end a protracted search for a new leader of the school district. It started last year after CEO Pedro Martinez was fired.
Though the contract appoints her as CEO, King has a superintendent’s license, which the partly elected, partly appointed board made a requirement for the position. Those who have worked with King say she is an expert on teaching and learning, as well as building relationships and cultivating leadership.
Unlike some past CPS leaders, she does not have a background in accounting and will likely have to find a strong chief financial officer to help her navigate the district’s budget and debt. CPS is projected to be facing a $500 million deficit next school year and future deficits.
King started as a teacher in CPS and became a principal of Dumas Elementary School on the South Side in 2007. She served there until that school was closed in 2013. She then became principal of a North Side elementary, which took in students from a nearby closed school.
She applied for the CEO position in 2021, but was passed over for Martinez. But she was hired by Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2022 to work in her office as the deputy education mayor.
She was kept on when Brandon Johnson became mayor. One of Johnson’s former top officials, who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, called King a “wonderful person who was really well-liked.”
Though the school board is partially elected, Johnson still appoints the majority of its members.
As interim, King was immediately confronted with a budget deficit that she pegged at more than $700 million. She gained the respect of some of Johnson’s opponents by refusing to present a budget that included borrowing, which was something that the mayor’s office argued the budget should allow for.
King wasn’t among the finalists in the fall, which became a point of contention among some groups who supported her, such as the Westside Branch of the NAACP. But her standing among board members has risen over the last few months as she’s handled tense budget discussions, the closings of privately managed public schools and widespread immigration enforcement that affected schools. Board member Jitu Brown has said her interim post has been like an “on the job interview” for King.
The board named three finalists earlier this month, but days later one of the candidates, Meisha Porter, the former leader of New York City’s school system, dropped out without offering a reason.
The other finalist was Sito Narcisse, the former head of Louisiana’s second-largest school district, whose past job experience was somewhat polarizing. Some praised him as a “transformational leader” but others criticized his leadership style.
There were some concerns among community members that the finalists didn’t include a Latino candidate. Chalkbeat Chicago reported that a fourth finalist dropped out, but board members wouldn’t say if that person was Latino.